The Famine in Lower Ormond

The Cloughjordan Parish Heritage Group will hold a talk on the impact of the Great Famine on the Cloughjordan and Lower Ormond areas on this Friday evening, April 3, at 8pm in the MacDonagh Museum. Admission fee is €5. The talk will be delivered by well-known local historian David Broderick from Lorrha.

Topics covered will include information on known local people who died from starvation during the Famine. Included in this list of victims is Bridget Quirke, a widow from Bantiss, and her six children who perished from starvation in 1848. Also included in this list is Patrick Hayden, aged five years, from Kyle and Thomas Leonard, Kyle, who both also died from starvation. There will also be mention of local clergymen Fr John Spain from Moanfin, Kilruane and Rev FF Trench, Church of Ireland curate from Cloughjordan, who were very prominent during the Famine. In 1848 Fr Spain, who was PP in Birr, died from fever he contracted while ministering to the inmates of Birr Workhouse.

The Rev FF Trench set up soup kitchens in Cloughjordan in 1846. He later moved to West Cork, one of the areas in Ireland worst affected by the Famine, to set up soup kitchens there in 1847.

The annual National Famine Commemoration will take place this year in the Irish Workhouse Centre in Portumna on Saturday, May 16.